The present invention relates to a tone generation system composed of a plurality of processor devices connected to a network.
So-called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technique has heretofore been known, via which a plurality of musical instruments are connected with each other to constitute an electronic musical instrument network system. The MIDI standard is a common standard for transmitting automatic performance data etc., which allows performance data, such as a key code, to be transmitted, in a single direction, from a given one of a plurality of electronic musical instruments distributed in a network to another one of the electronic musical instruments. With the MIDI technique, each MIDI message is in the form of serial data and MIDI lines are wired so as to connect between the instruments in series, so that the MIDI lines would occupy a considerable space. Further, if any one of the MIDI lines is disconnected even at one point by accident or by error, no signal can be delivered beyond that point any longer, which would result in unwanted termination of tone generation. Further, once any one of the MIDI lines is disconnected, wiring operation for restoring the connection would become very cumbersome and laborious.
Therefore, “mLAN” (musical Local Area Network) has been proposed as a musical instrument system using a network (e.g., Japanese Patent No. 3271493). The mLAN is a technique for transmitting digital audio/MIDI data using the IEEE1394 standard, which permits communication of digital audio data or MIDI data of 256 channels or over by connecting between AV devices and/or electronic devices and a computer system via an IEEE1394 interface. The mLAN defines commands for, for example, controlling individual AV devices and/or electronic devices and corporation among the devices on the basis of the “IEC61833-6 Audio and Music Data Transmission Protocol” that is a protocol for communicating audio/MIDI data via the IEEE1394 interface. With such an mLAN, complicated connections between a plurality of devices, which used to be made using analog cables. MIDI cables, etc., can be replaced with daisy-chain connections of IEEE 1394 cables, to thereby greatly simplify the connections between the devices.
In a case where the aforementioned conventional electronic musical instrument does not possess a requested tone color (i.e., voice file), it has been conventional for the electronic musical instrument to generate a tone using another tone color as a substitute for the requested tone color (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. SHO-59-197090). It has also been known that a recording medium, such as a CD-ROM or floppy disk, having a tone color recorded therein, is inserted into the conventional electronic musical instrument to add the tone color (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. HEI-8-76752).
However, because the mLAN is in the form of daisy-chain connections, physically connecting a new device to a desired point of the network and then performing logical connection setting would involve extremely difficult operation. Further, because lines are wired to connect the individual devices in series, the lines would occupy a considerable space. Further, if any of the lines is disconnected even at a single point by accident or by error, no signal can be delivered beyond that point any longer, which would result in unwanted termination of tone generation. Furthermore, once any of the lines is disconnected, wiring operation for restoring the connection would become very cumbersome and laborious.
Further, the “LAN” (Local Area Network) has been known as a network capable of connecting a new device to a desired point. The LAN is a computer network, such as an intranet, installed within a relatively limited area, and in recent years, such a LAN is built in an ordinary house as well. However, there presently exists no tone generator or other tone-generation-related device that can be connected directly to a LAN, and it has so far been impossible to build a musical instrument system using an ordinary form of network, such as a LAN. Further, if a tone of a desired tone color that is not possessed by a musical instrument is generated by the musical instrument using another tone color as a substitute for the desired tone color, there would arise the problem that the tone can not be generated with the exact tone color, because the tone color used is just a substitute. If, in such a case, a recording medium so far inserted in the musical instrument is replaced with another recording medium in accordance with the tone color to be used, then medium-replacing operation tends to be cumbersome, and a user has to remember which tone colors are recorded in which recording media.
Furthermore, if it is desired to build a musical instrument system using an ordinary network such as a LAN, tone-generation-related devices, such as a keyboard, tone generator and speaker, are logically connected via the network. In this case, logical connections are made in accordance with requested logical connection states. But, if a requested connected-to (i.e., destination) tone-generation-related device is incapable of establishing a new connection, the requested logical connection can not be made. Thus, in such a case, the user has to repeat operation for setting the requested logical connection so as to find an alternative connectable tone-generation-related device, and such operation tends to be cumbersome and complicated, leading to an increased burden on the user.
Furthermore, the logical connection states established in the aforementioned manner are canceled by logging off from the network, and, at next logon, the logical connections will be established through connection-establishing setting operation performed again. Because the same connection states set last time are often carried over as connection states to be established next, it is conceivable to restore, at the time of logon, the connection states that were being maintained till immediate before the last logoff. However, if, at the time of logon, any client that was being connected to the network till immediately before the last logoff is no longer present in the network or has a different construction than that immediately before the last logoff, then no connection can be made to the desired client, so that the last-set connection states can not be restored. As a consequence, the tone generation system can not be restored completely as intended by the user. If the client restored to such an incomplete connection state is logged off, the incomplete connection state would be undesirably restored at the time of next logon.